The problems of corrosion and attendant effects such as pitting have troubled water systems for years. For instance, scale tends to accumulate on internal walls of various water systems, and thereby materially lessens the operational efficiency of the system. In this manner, heat transfer functions of the particular system are severely impeded.
Corrosion is a degradative electrochemical reaction of a metal with its environment. It is the reversion of refined metals to their natural state. For example, iron ore is iron oxide. Iron oxide is refined into steel. When the steel corrodes, it forms iron oxide which, if unattended, may result in failure or destruction of the metal, causing the particular water system to be shut down until the necessary repairs can be made.
Typically, in cooling water systems, corrosion along with pitting has proven deleterious to the overall efficiency of the system. Many cooling water systems employ orthophosphate in the system treatment to promote passivation of the metal surfaces in contact with the system water. However, current costs of phosphorus based inhibitors have skyrocketed due to increased demand of P2O5 ores for agricultural fertilizers. Also, environmental regulations in the United States and Europe have increased restriction on phosphate discharge into local rivers and streams.
Accordingly, low or no phosphate treatment programs have seen increasing use with a concurrent emphasis on all or predominantly organic treatment programs that typically require relatively higher treatment dosages (i.e., >50 ppm) to be effective. Unfortunately, these high level organic treatment dosages increase the biological food in the system (carbon footprint) and increase the need for feed of toxic biocidal compounds to the system.
The benefit of carbon footprint reduction can be viewed from two different perspectives. First, carbon footprint reduction can be viewed in terms of savings in energy consumption that otherwise would be needed to synthesize the organic inhibitor. Here, the lesser amount of organic material that need be generated results in less waste, fewer emissions, etc.
Secondly, the reduction in the generation of food for biological growth results in reduction in the feed levels of biocide needed to control microbial activity.